1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for multiplexing Gigabit Ethernet frames to provide 10-Gigabit Ethernet interface by multiplexing Gigabit Ethernet frames input from multi-port Gigabit Ethernet MAC (Medium Access Control) and for demultiplexing 10-Gigabit Ethernet frame to provide Gigabit Ethernet interface to the multi-port Gigabit Ethernet MAC by demultiplexing the 10-Gigabit Ethernet frame.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since Ethernet frames are not fixed-length cells used in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) but have variable lengths ranging from 64 bytes to 1,518 bytes, fixed time slots cannot be used during a multiplexing procedure from a low data rate to a high data rate. Also, bit-based time division multiplexing (TDM) is considered, but when multiplexing is performed using bit-based TDM, it is difficult to synchronize frames and the multiplexed frames cannot maintain an Ethernet frame configuration, resulting in incompatibility with other Ethernet devices. Thus, multiplexing in conventional Ethernet devices have mainly used link aggregation in a MAC zone or wave division multiplexing (WDM) in which various waves are used in one optical fiber.
In general, to process 10-Gigabit Ethernet frames, 10-Gigabit network processor and 10-Gigabit Ethernet MAC are required. Since the 10-Gigabit network processor has not been commercialized yet, it is necessary to actually perform Gigabit processing and provide 10-Gigabit interface by inserting frame multiplexing/demultiplexing circuits into already commercialized Gigabit network processor and Gigabit Ethernet MAC. Thus, it becomes possible to provide 10-Gigabit Ethernet interface without using 10-Gigabit network processor and the amount of transmission can be increased to 10 times Gigabit Ethernet by using one optical fiber instead of a plurality of optical fibers for 10-Gigabit bandwidths. Also, since Ethernet frames have variable lengths ranging from 64 bytes to 1,518 bytes, when using the Ethernet frames in conventional cell-based multiplexing, there are many problems such as framing, synchronization, bit-based TDM, and the like.